Spanish words from Latin
1854 Spanish words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 16).
lazo
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *lacium, a simplified form of Latin laqueus (“noose, snare”). Wiktionary gives the Vulgar Latin form as *laceum. The change is common to all the Romance languages…
lección
It is borrowed from Latin lēctiō (“reading”), a learned word that Corominas records first in Berceo. The Latin noun is formed on legō (“to gather; to read”) with the suffix -tiō. It first meant…
leche
It is inherited from Old Spanish leche, inherited from Vulgar Latin lacte, the archaic and late form of Latin lac (“milk”). Wiktionary takes the word from the late accusative lactem of a masculine…
lecho
It is inherited from Latin lectus (“bed, couch”). The early spellings Old Spanish leito, lieto and leycho come before lecho in the records. The same Latin word is Portuguese leito, Galician leito…
lechuga
It is inherited from Old Spanish lechuga, inherited from Latin lactūca (“lettuce”). Corominas notes that the Latin word survives in all the Romance languages except Rhaeto-Romance. The same word is…
leer
It is inherited from Old Spanish leer, inherited from Latin legō (“to gather, collect; to choose; to read”). Intervocalic /ɡ/ before /e/ was lost in Castilian, leaving the two vowels side by side…
legación
It is borrowed from Latin lēgātiō (“the sending of envoys, embassy”). The Latin noun is formed from lēgō (“to send with a commission”) with the suffix -tiō. Corominas lists it, without a date, among…
legal
It is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin lēgālis (“of or concerned with law”). The Latin adjective is formed lēx (“law”) + -ālis. The same Latin word was inherited as leal “loyal, faithful”…
legislador
It is borrowed from Latin lēgislātor (“proposer of a law, lawgiver”). In classical Latin it was usually written apart, lēgis (“of a law”), the genitive of the word for “law”, and lātor (“proposer”)…
legua
It is inherited from Late Latin leuga (“league”), also spelt leuca, a word of Celtic origin. The OLD defines it as a Gallic measure of distance equal to 1,500 Roman paces. Roman writers already…
legumbre
It is inherited from Latin legūmen (“pulse, leguminous plant”), continued through its oblique stem. Wiktionary and Gómez de Silva start from an accusative *legūmine(m), formed by analogy, since the…
lengua
It is inherited from Old Spanish lengua, inherited from Latin lingua (“tongue; speech, language”). The word is common to all periods of Spanish and to all the Romance languages. Latin had a short…
lenteja
It continues inherited from Latin lenticula (“lentil”), a diminutive of lēns (“lentil”) with the same meaning. Wiktionary passes it through a syncopated Vulgar Latin *lenticla. Corominas notes that…
lento
It is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin lentus (“pliant; sticky; lasting; slow”), first recorded in the mid-15th century in Diego de Burgos. The Latin adjective had already come down by…
letra
It is inherited from Latin littera (“letter of the alphabet”), recorded from the beginnings of the language. The same word is Portuguese letra, Asturian lletra, Catalan lletra, Occitan letra, French…
ley
It is inherited from Old Spanish ley, inherited from Latin lēx (“law”). The same Latin word is Portuguese lei, Galician lei, Asturian llei, Catalan llei, Occitan lei, French loi, Italian legge and…
libertad
It is inherited from Old Spanish libertat, borrowed from Latin lībertās (“freedom”), a learned word. Corominas lists it under libre and dates it from the Setenario, about 1250. The same Latin word…
libra
It is inherited from Old Spanish libra, inherited from Latin lībra (“pound (weight); pair of scales”). The same word is Portuguese libra, Galician libra, Asturian llibra and Catalan lliura, as well…
librar
It is inherited from Latin līberāre (“to set free”), from līber (“free”). It is a popular word, and a doublet of liberar, a learned borrowing of the same verb first recorded in the second half of…
libre
It is inherited from Latin līber (“free”), a semi-learned word. Wiktionary calls it probably a learned borrowing. Corominas explains the final ⟨-e⟩ by adaptation of the Latin nominative; he rejects…
libro
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin liber (“inner bark of a tree; book”), used in all periods of the language. Vox calls it a borrowing of the 12th century. Corominas notes that the word has a…
lidiar
It is inherited from Latin lītigāre (“to dispute, quarrel, go to law”). Corominas notes that the Latin verb survives as a popular word only in Spanish and in Portuguese lidar, and that its change of…
ligar
It is inherited from Latin ligāre (“to tie, bind”), in a semi-learned form that kept the Latin /i/. The popular outcome was Old Spanish legar, but the form with ⟨i⟩, shared with Portuguese ligar and…
lima
1. The word for the fruit is borrowed from Andalusian Arabic لِيمَة (líma), from Arabic ليمة (līmah). Corriente traces the Arabic word to Persian لیمو (limu), and further to Sanskrit. Wiktionary…
limitación
It is borrowed from Latin līmitātiō (“the fixing of boundaries”), a noun formed on līmitō (“to enclose within boundaries”), itself from līmes (“path between fields; boundary”). Corominas lists it…
límite
It is borrowed from Latin līmes (“path between two fields; boundary, frontier”), a learned word. Its inherited doublet is linde, recorded from the beginnings of the language: Oelschläger has it as a…
límpido
It is a learned borrowed from Latin limpidus (“clear, transparent”), beside the inherited doublet limpio. Corominas thinks it came by way of French limpide, which he dates to about 1500; the DHLF…
línea
It is borrowed from Latin līnea (“linen thread, string; line, stroke”), a learned word that replaced the inherited liña. The popular form is recorded from a charter of 1148, in the sense “fishing…
liquen
It is a learned borrowed from Latin līchēn (“lichen”). Corominas thinks it came into Spanish through French lichen, current in French since 1545, since Terreros refers expressly to the French word…
lirio
It is inherited from Old Spanish lilio, borrowed from Latin līlium (“lily”). Corominas notes that the older form in Berceo and Alfonso de Palencia may be an artificial Latinism, while the form with…
lista
It continues inherited from Vulgar Latin *lista, a borrowing from Proto-West Germanic *līstā (“strip, band, border”). Corominas notes that the word is already in the Latin glossary ascribed to…
literatura
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin litterātūra (“writing; grammar; learning”). Corominas counts it among the learned words of the family of letra. The Latin noun is formed from littera…
llamar
It is inherited from Old Spanish clamar, inherited from Latin clāmō (“to shout, cry out”). The older spelling with ⟨cl⟩ is normal in Berceo and other early texts, while the Cid already has the form…
llanto
It is inherited from Latin planctus (“a striking; beating of the breast, lamentation”); the Old Spanish form was planto. The Latin noun is formed from plangō (“to strike; to beat one's breast…
llave
It is inherited from Latin clāvis (“key; bar, bolt”). Latin initial cl- became the palatal /ʎ/, written ⟨ll⟩, as in llamar from clāmō. The learned doublet clave is recorded from about 1570, in…
lleno
It is inherited from Old Spanish lleno, also written leno, lenno and llieno, inherited from Latin plēnus (“full”). The word has been in general use in every period and is common to all the Romance…
llevar
It is inherited from Old Spanish levar, inherited from Latin levāre (“to lighten, relieve; to raise”). The initial /ʎ/ arose in the forms stressed on the root, such as lieva from levat, where the…
llorar
It is inherited from Latin plōrō (“to cry out, wail”). The verb is used in every period and is common to all the Romance languages except Romanian, though modern Italian has lost it. It is…
llover
It continues inherited from Vulgar Latin *plovere, which replaced the classical Latin pluere (“to rain”). Corominas notes that the Vulgar Latin form is recorded in Petronius and already in archaic…
lluvia
It is inherited from Old Spanish lluvia, inherited from Latin pluvia (“rain”). The Latin noun is the feminine of the adjective pluvius (“rainy”) used on its own, short for “rainy weather”, and…
local
It is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Late Latin locālis (“of a place”). Corominas dates it to Alonso de Palencia (1490), but the CDH has it a century earlier, in Aragonese charters of 1396 that…
lograr
It is inherited from Old Spanish lograr, inherited from Latin lucror (“to make a profit, gain”). The Latin verb is formed from lucrum (“gain, profit”), which survives separately in logro. The…
logro
It is inherited from Latin lucrum (“gain, profit”). In Old Spanish logro first meant “interest, usury”. The verb lograr, from lucrārī (“to make a profit”), was the commoner word from the earliest…
lucha
It is inherited from Old Spanish lucha, inherited from Late Latin lucta (“wrestling; struggle”). Corominas lists it under the verb luchar, from Latin luctor (“to wrestle”), and dates both to Berceo…
luchar
It is inherited from Latin luctor (“to wrestle, struggle”), whose active form luctāre was the Old Latin one. The verb has survived in all the Romance languages: Portuguese lutar, once luitar…
luego
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin locō (“immediately”), the ablative of the Latin noun for “place” used as an adverb. Corominas explains it as a renewal of classical ilicō (“on the spot…
lugar
It is inherited from Late Latin locālis (“of a place, local”), a derivative of locus (“place”); the Old Spanish form was logar. Corominas explains the replacement: the descendant of the simple noun…
luna
It is inherited from Old Spanish luna, inherited from Latin lūna (“moon”). The word has the same form in every period of the language and is common to all the Romance languages. Its cognates include…
lunes
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin (diēs) Lūnis (“(day) of the Moon”), a form found in inscriptions, shortened to its second word. Classical Latin said diēs Lūnae or Lūnae diēs, “the day sacred to…
luz
It continues inherited from Latin lūx (“light”), genitive ⟨lūcis⟩. The word has had the same form since the earliest Old Spanish texts. Corominas notes that it is common to the Romance languages…
macho
1. The word for “male” is inherited from Vulgar Latin *masclus, the contracted form of Latin masculus (“male”), itself a diminutive of mās (“male”). Old Spanish had maslo, in Berceo, Alfonso X and…
madera
It is inherited from Old Spanish madera, inherited from Latin māteria (“wood of a tree; timber; material, matter”). In Latin the word was the timber for building, as against lignum, the wood for…
madre
It is inherited from Latin māter (“mother”). Wiktionary takes it from the accusative, the Academy's dictionary of 1884 from the ablative. The word is used in every period and is common to all the…
maduro
It is inherited from Old Spanish maduro, inherited from Latin mātūrus (“ripe; timely”). The same Latin word is Portuguese maduro, Galician maduro, Asturian maduru, Catalan madur, Occitan madur…
maestro
It is inherited from Old Spanish maestro, inherited from Latin magister (“chief, director; teacher”). Its feminine maestra continues magistra. Spanish also has the learned doublet magíster and…
magnífico
It is borrowed from Latin magnificus (“splendid, magnificent”), a learned word. The Latin adjective is formed from magnus (“great”) and -ficus (“making”), the second part being from faciō (“to make…
magro
It is inherited from Latin macer (“thin, lean”), through Old Spanish magro. The word is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese magro, Galician magro, Catalan magre, Occitan magre, French…
majestad
It is borrowed from Latin maiestas (“greatness, dignity, sovereignty”). The Latin noun is related to maior (“greater”), the comparative of magnus (“great”): the Oxford Latin Dictionary analyses it…
mal
The adverb is inherited from Latin male (“badly”), the adverb of malus (“bad”). It is found from the earliest texts and is common to the whole of Romance. The same Latin adverb is Portuguese mal…
malo
It is inherited from Old Spanish malo, inherited from Latin malus (“bad”). Corominas notes that the word has been in general use at every period and is shared by all the Romance languages except…